Phase coherence of the EVLA radio telescope

Steven Durand; James Jackson; Keith Morris

doi:10.1117/12.667804

23 June 2006 Phase coherence of the EVLA radio telescope

Steven Durand, James Jackson, Keith Morris

Proceedings Volume 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes; 62673Y (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.667804
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The design of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) project is approaching completion. Four of the twenty-seven antennas have been upgraded into the final configuration. The 2200 miles of fiber optic cables have been installed underground and are functional. The master oscillator and the round trip phase hardware have been operating uninterrupted since November 2003. Hundreds of hours of test observations have been performed as we start the task of characterizing the upgraded system. This paper discusses the results of this testing and describes the techniques used to maintain phase coherence of the EVLA LO chain and of the new wideband receivers. The enhancements to the VLA system include a new local oscillator (LO) system, a fiber optic LO distribution system, and a digital round trip phase measurement system. The phase requirement for the LO system requires that the long term phase drift slope be less than 6.0 picoseconds per 30 minutes at 40 GHz and be maintained across the entire array. To accomplish this, a near real time continuous measurement is made of the phase delay in the fiber optic cable distributing the LO reference signals to each antenna. This information is used by the correlator to set the phase on each of the baselines in the array.

Citation Download Citation

Steven Durand, James Jackson, and Keith Morris "Phase coherence of the EVLA radio telescope", Proc. SPIE 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes, 62673Y (23 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.667804

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